Researcher and photographer Mariajose Silva Vargas is about to complete her full-time PhD at UNU-MERIT (defending on 24 January) and now works as a Research and Policy Manager at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Europe (J-PAL Europe). In this interview, she shares some highlights from both her photography work and her PhD journey, and explains how the two perfectly complemented each other. Mariajose’s online photography portfolio can be found on her personal website. What is the motiv...
Here’s what happened at the first Critical Policy Conference A guest post by Vincent Tadday, Global Studies student at Maastricht University To effect real change in policy and create social impact by way of re-imagination processes and dialogue, a new student-led initiative has emerged: the Critical Policy Lab. On Saturday 3 June 2023 in Maastricht, the first edition of the Lab’s Critical Policy Conference welcomed around 70 participants from UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University co...
A post by Brendan Joy, a student on our MSc. in Public Policy and Human Development, who just won a place on a social enterprise programme in Ireland. NB, the next deadline for applications to our UN-backed double-degree Master’s programme is 15 July 2020. … Bees and other pollinators like butterflies are declining globally, their numbers now in freefall. Climate change, habitat loss, industrialised agriculture, and the use of harmful chemicals form a deadly cocktail that threatens their s...
There’s a saying in English: “Necessity is the mother of invention” – but this has always struck me as incomplete. Necessity is also the mother of innovation, i.e. a novelty that generates a profit or something of value for a community, as in a social innovation. What follows is the story of our drive for community engagement and nudge therapy, amid the coronavirus pandemic. Around early March 2020, I started getting the same questions from my international students in Maastricht and my NGO team...
Strangers who share one car. A network around a drug addicted youth who offer care themselves, under the guidance of a professional. A person paying back an hour of painting window frames with an hour of working in someone else’s garden. These are all examples of a more social economy, which is growing slowly but surely, also in the Netherlands. At Maastricht University, Prof. René Kemp is studying how this transition from an old to a new economy is taking shape worldwide. Working together to do...